


who am i?

by Kaile (rcs), rcs



Category: Ragnarok Online
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rcs/pseuds/Kaile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rcs/pseuds/rcs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there are some things that can never be hidden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who am i?

She will look back at the day she walked into HQ after a long mission to Cessair waiting in her room with that look of 'I have something to tell you' and that mixed expression of mingled excitement and dread, and look back at the Bad Feeling she'd been having all day, and one day she hopes she will laugh. As it stands, she accepts the revelation of Cessair's intent to marry well enough-- she has never been an emotional dynamo, but if she's learned anything it's the value of a good facade, something she suspects she picked up more from Halloween than Cessair herself. So it's with a smile and a slight sense of something between them changing, something in the dynamic of the three of them-- inseperable for years and now finally breaking out of their self-imposed semi-isolation-- their club, their us-against-the-world mentality-- warping, the triangle pulling apart. For years, she's been following the other two-- Halloween and his bad ideas, Cessair and her determination to see them through. Now, she realizes, she's going to have to look at the world through the eyes of only one person: herself. She has to look at the world not in terms of 'everyone else', but she's going to have to look at herself as one of them, because they can't stay isolated forever.

The idea of it-- the thought of it, of facing the world like that, of having to talk and walk and be among all those people that were _total strangers_ \-- terrifies her.

\---

The wedding was beautiful, Cessair radiant in her gown from the moment they got her into it, fussing over Asellus as she always had, smoothing the folds of unfamiliar and restricting fabric, fussing with her hair, spending more time acting like a mother than a bride until the green-haired girl catches her hands-- gently; she knows her own strength all too well-- and telling her to calm down. She does admirably enough, and since the bridesmaids are all in a separate room, dressing and giggling, they keep Halloween with them, a selfish choice on his account because there are _bridesmaids_ and they're _dressing_ and there is a chance of _peeking_ , but he tolerates it because.... well, they're not sure exactly why, and tolerate is a strange word for it since he keeps complaining, though probably not seriously.

Cess is happy, but a single look passing between Asellus and Halloween tells both sides of the wordless conversation that it wasn't completely shared-- at least, not without its complicating caveats. And when the ceremony finishes-- 'speak now or forever hold your peace' and for once they both do that, they don't go calling out 'no, you're destroying our family', 'no, you haven't asked _us_ ', all sorts of maudlin bullshit they know won't be understood, and besides, after so long carrying their weight, Asellus thinks Cessair-- of all of them-- deserves and is capable of that kind of happiness. Hallo wouldn't want the tie-down, and she...

Well, she's not cut out for that kind of life. She cast her lots so long ago with these two that she's afraid there might not be room in her heart for anyone else. And she won't admit it, but she's a little jealous-- deep down in that dark place where she shoves her memories of her time before the guild, where she hides the wicked bloodlust that keeps her swinging her Atroce's Blade-- that there was apparently room there for someone else in Cessair's.

She's afraid of those feelings. They make her feel sick in her stomach when she tries to confront them.

And for once, she finds that she can't go to Cess about them-- that she can't go to _anyone_ with them. Halloween isn't good with that sort of thing and she's not going to burden him with it. It's not his job in their group. Cess has always carried their emotional weight, has always been the one to protect her. When she wakes up remembering the blank, glazing eyes of her father, the sticky blood of her mother, the gaping throats and torn dresses of her sisters, the place she used to go is gone.

And now she wakes up, and it's not her parents she watches fall to the ground, gurgling and screaming and pulling the bile from her stomach and into her throat.

It's Cessair. And it's a panic when she realizes that it's not her place anymore, to protect her soul-sister, her confidante and best friend and every defense against the complicated things, the shield from the world that isn't part of _us_ , but _them_. It'll be her husband's job, and having met him, Asellus can't say she believes he can do it.

Of course, it's just as hard to believe that she could, either. Cessair is strong, she knows-- stronger by far than she feels like she is. But will he ever _know_ her like she knows her? Somehow Asellus doubts it.

\--

They watch the carriage roll off, the cheers of the guests who are not already too tired to see the couple off, and as it passes the horizon there's a shared sigh. It's really over, they both know it, and they've decided to deal with it in their own ways. Asellus sits against a wall, a bottle of champagne in one hand and a ludicrously huge plate of strawberries on one side of her. Hallo waltzes by with his arm slung low around the slim waist of a woman in purple, giving her a wink that she just stares at him over. Then a woman in orange. Then yellow, and when Asellus gets up to use the facilities she stumbles past him and a girl in blue with her skirt hiked up and her legs around his waist panting against a wall in the hallway. A rainbow of skirts later, he plops down beside her with another bottle of champagne and steals a strawberry. She doesn't make a move as he sighs. "Well, _that_ didn't help."

"Seemed to be enjoying it to me," she murmured, prompting a bit of a doubletake at her tone and a sardonic smile.

"Didn't say it wasn't enjoyable, Sellz. It was. But it didn't help." A swig of champagne and a face at the fizz. "God, this stuff's like drinkin' acid. How're you managin' it?"

"Don't really feel it." Don't really feel anything, but they both know that and stating the obvious is a waste of time. There's a long, thoughtful silence before he gets uncomfortable with it and has to break it, because he knows she won't. "Open bar in the reception hall, y'know." He's better at distraction than comfort, and he knows it as well as she does.

"...They left it unattended?"

The rest of the night is a blur, but when she wakes up in her own bed the next morning, sheets tangled and her head pounding, she doesn't think it's much of an improvement over how she'd felt the night prior. And when the hangover fades, she dresses in her work clothes and goes to Miru's office, eager to get out in the field again.

\--

It's been three months, and for at least eighty percent of that time she's been swinging her sword like it will lead her to enlightenment. She's stronger-- she knows it, and so does everything living in the Payon forests. She's been scouring the sweating, mouldering cities deep in the Payon underground for weeks, dodging the ludicrously fast, incredibly strong Fox spirit living there, and she's beginning to feel more comfortable with her newfound role as perpetually absent from the everyday torture of dealing with other people and remembering the past. She wakes up in her camps occasionally feeling sticky and blood-stained, but finding herself clean. Occasionally she sees Halloween, and occasionally he decides to drag her with him when he goes to the pubs, to the smoky dice-dens. That's where she meets him-- a mild-mannered, utterly average hunter with deeply tanned skin (a side-effect of the job, he says) and pale hair, tinged red. His eyes are gentle and the color of brandy, and he's kind enough. He's in the same boat she's in as she watches Hallo rolling dice and spitting curses when he rolls ones; he's not one for gambling and they chit-chat politely enough. He's not often around people, either, and he doesn't look at her strangely for her hesitance when she's speaking, or judge her for her preference for silence. And when he stands-- 'going out for air', he calls it--, he invites her along. And though her gut is screaming that this sort of thing isn't _for_ her, her mind is querulously wondering if, since Cess could, maybe she could, too? So she accepts.

It's the beginning of a very private thing, something they're not really meaning to hide, but something they're not broadcasting, either. It's the beginning of whispered secrets, of stolen kisses and nights of violence and glory, sweat and sex and lips and skin sticking to skin. It's the beginning of what Asellus is finding to be the amnesiac effect of that heat, of pounding hearts and arching backs and things that the word 'torrid' can only begin to describe. It's a conscious effort to forget more than it is anything else, but only he realizes it. And when he finally puts a name to it, it becomes a shatterglass sensation of 'I'm not sure this is really working', 'this doesn't seem to be what you really want', and finally 'it was fine while it lasted'. And Asellus, who had never reached out like that to anyone that wasn't Halloween or Cessair-- not sexually, but with all of her, risking her personal space and her thoughts to the brutal and cold air of the world Outside--, remembered why she'd been so frightened of doing so in the first place.

And it reinforced what she was beginning to believe: that the good things always had to end, and the good people always had to leave. And if she hadn't left, what sort of person did that make her?

\--

She should have known that she couldn't hide from the world for long, and particularly not the part of the world that was ruled by the pink-haired Ranger. She might also have known that while he wasn't good at noticing little things, and even worse at comfort, this was hardly little and he knew who to go to about the whole comfort thing. He'd known the man in question-- not well, but he was a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-guy-whose-sister-he'd-nailed-- and while he was slightly insulted that she'd think she could hide this from him, especially when she requested a break and spent her time in her room, not coming down for meals and prompting Balthasar to look at him and ask if he knew if anything was wrong, and sending him up with food-- and wasn't that a bitch, being unable to refuse because he was worried, too? And she didn't even pick at it when he was in the room unless he pushed, and even then he usually only managed to get her to eat a bit of meat and all of the bread.

Sneaking her cakes wasn't met with the normal enthusiasm, either; she ate them slowly. He couldn't stand seeing her like this, if only because it was eerily similar to the first time he'd seen her, blankeyed and shy. Like she'd made a total 180.

So he sent a letter off to Cessair's new home, and was unsurprised when she appeared within half an hour of sending it, all business. He'd been hugged and given a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and told to let her handle this once he'd debriefed her, and he found himself hoping she could and actually unsure of what the outcome would be when she closed the door behind her. But if anyone could handle this, it was Cess, right?

\--

When the door opens, she expects Halloween, Balthasar, Jolle-- anyone but the unmistakable tread of Cessair's shoes on the stone floors. And somehow that's worse, that the vulnerable feeling that had felt like salt on an open wound be shown to the one person who didn't need her weigh-down, someone who had a normal life to get back to and her own happiness to focus on, someone she doesn't want to burden with the unfamiliar and stinging ache of a loneliness she has no right to acknowledge.

She's talking-- how could she not hear that voice, when she'd been hearing it in her sleep for weeks, albeit usually screaming or sobbing as Asellus' own demons tore her and hers apart. And logically, Asellus knows that she's probably worried, and her voice is probably worried, but all she can hear is the wet sounds of bodies hitting the floor, the wails of pain-- and in the back of her mind, a man, whispering. "I'm not sure this is going to work."

She's not sure if he's talking about her mind or that doomed affair, and the possibility it might be both is terrifying enough to numb her lips and leave her only aware of the pace and timbre of Cessair's words.

She turns to look at the woman who was once-- no, who still was one of her best friends, and for a moment, superimposed over the concern is blood-- dark red, tacky blood.

And then it's gone and there's just Cess, asking her what it was that had her so spooked.

 _You left. That's what it was, that now I'm alone and Hallo tries, Balth tries, everyone tries but no one is_ you _and I can't claim that you're mine anymore. And there was never anyone else I could have ever claimed that about._

"Nothing."

Well then, Cessair tries, why is she acting like this, worrying everyone? It's not like her.

 _Not like me? There's never been anything like me here. There's only been you and Halloween, and both of you are gone now. Sure, you might come back sometimes, and he might come here sometimes, but aside from that... I'm broken into three pieces, and two of them are never around anymore. I tried to find someone else, someone who'd stay with me during these lonely times, but he left, too. Why do you_ think _I'm like this?_

"No reason."

\--------

Cessair isn't sure exactly what she's expecting of Asellus when she picks the lock-- it's hard to keep things locked when someone can disable traps-- and opens the door to the girl's room. Maybe tears, though she hasn't seen Sellz cry in years, since they were both nine, and there is no reason to expect it; Halloween would have called her attention long, long ago if there'd been any sign of tears in her eyes.

But she doesn't expect what she's walked into-- namely, a mess.

Since they were very young, Asellus was neat to a worrying extent; more than once, Cessair'd had to sneak into her room and tell the girl to put down the scrub-brush (or broom, or blade oils) to go to bed, and the look Asellus would sometimes give Halloween's room was nothing short of horrified (though he insisted, and they believed him, that he knew where everything was). So when Cessair had to step OVER a sheath, and through a pile of sheets, and Asellus was barefoot and half leaning out the window as if completely unaware of her presence, something was Definitely Wrong.

At least, until Asellus spoke.

"What are you doing here?" It's not unkindly said; it's just a bit distant, a little confused.

"Halloween called me," Cessair responds, seeing no point in lying. "We're worried about you."

"There's nothing to worry about." Sellz turned from the window, pushing a blanket with one foot under the bed. She seemed self-conscious. Good; she hadn't changed completely, at least. "I've just been busy. It's nothing."

"You haven't stopped working in weeks, Sellz. You barely stop moving long enough to eat a meal, or rest." Cessair has seen this before-- is probably more in-tune with Asellus' patterns than anyone else. Balthasar gives the knight a wide berth, since she's capable of caring for herself and there are so many children who need him more; Miru is too wrapped up in her own work to notice. And Halloween... well, he's often gone to other cities. No, throughout their training and for the vast majority of their lives, they've been twin-close; they've always known one another and each others' hearts to an eerie degree.

It worries her, that she didn't know about this first. That Asellus had closed herself off so tightly. "Don't give me 'it's nothing'. Why are you BEING like this?" Asellus tries to insist there's no reason, but a level stare-- a long, knowing soul-sister stare she's never had to turn on the green-haired girl before-- cuts her off, and Cessair waits for a true answer.

"What else IS there to do?" Asellus' tone is frustrated, and for the first time in this whole conversation, Cess gets the feeling that she's not being hidden from. She can't tell if it's in the strange intonation Asellus is using, or in the expression she turns on her; there's a sharp vulnerability in her eyes, somewhere in the deep-dark blood-and-violets color. Somewhere in there, Cessair comes face-to-face with the little girl Asellus had once been. "I'm not good with people like Hallo, and you have things you have to do, too. I'm good at my work. I'm the best at it. So what else can I do?" She turns back to the window, as if she's aware that her eyes are saying too much again.

"You need to take time. You need to relax. Go out sometimes. You never visited."

"You never asked." And there was the crux of it-- they could never truly hide their thoughts from one another in their words, and Cessair knows the truth when she hears it, especially from Asellus. "I tried-- when you were gone, I tried really hard, because you were so happy. I tried to be happy, too."

Tried. "...It didn't work out, did it?" She remembers something Halloween said-- a man, he had told her, and she hadn't believed him because it was Asellus, and she'd never even shown any interest in anyone before. But now it seemed to fall into place, the things the knight couldn't say.

"Is it really such a surprise? You deserve to be happy, so you are. Hallo deserves to, too-- and he is, sort of. In his way. But I can't. I want to be happy for you two, and I CAN'T." There's a wobbly sense to her ramrod-straight back, and Asellus sits down, heavy on the bed. "Because I can't be happy with anyone else. I haven't been me because without you,"-- and it's not sure whether it's a singular or plural 'you', but it hardly matters-- "there IS no me. There's just... I don't know what to do. I don't know how to be happy. I don't deserve it, maybe."

"That's a lie, and you know it. You know you deserve it, Sellz! Don't you say th--"

"Then why CAN'T I be?" It's not a shout, but from Asellus it is practically a roar, and it catches Cessair off-guard. It's not anger, at least not at her, but it's deep frustration regardless. "I try, and I try-- and it doesn't work out, I can't sleep without dreaming about-- it's not RIGHT, Cess. If I try and I can't, then why?" It's anguished, and the composure, the steely-cool shield Asellus wears when she's at a loss for how to handle what she's thinking, shatters. She covers her eyes with both hands, and runs her fingers through a mess of uncombed hair. Silence hits the room like a hammer, and the only sound is Sellz, breathing in a manner that would sound normal to anyone who didn't know her like Cess did.

When she looks up again, Cessair is at her side, and there's a moment-- like balancing a blade, tip-first, on your finger-- where she tries, very hard, to keep her calm.

She fails, and that in and of itself is telling.

"You-- you're married, and I can't keep you safe anymore. I don't know what to do," she confesses, looking at her open hands. "I'm trying to be... useful, to find my place, but..."

"Sellz..."

"And you seemed so happy-- you never came to visit, never came back. I thought that you'd want me to..."

"To what? Worry everyone sick? Stop eating entirely? Never sleep? Drive HALLO of all people to write me a letter-- do you have any idea how hard it is to decypher his handwriting?"

She's gratified when Asellus suppresses a laugh, and she sighs and wraps her arms around her. "I've been busy, yes, but Sellz-- I'm never too busy for you, if you need me. I thought you knew that."

"I didn't want to impose."

"It's not imposition. He'll understand. He'll have to. You've known me longer, you know."

"Mm." There's a long moment as Asellus' cheek is on Cess' shoulder, and they both sigh in unison. It's quiet in the room, but the oppressive atmosphere of grief is lessened.

"Cess...?"

A curious noise.

"I'm hungry."

Cessair laughs, and squeezes her best friend's shoulders. "C'mon. Everyone's been wanting to see you, anyway. And then we'll pack a bag, and I'll show you my home. You'll want to know your way around when you come over-- I know you don't sleep well in strange places."


End file.
